The Hague 2, October 5, 2107

October 5, 2017, Day 4 Thursday The Hague 2

My sleep pattern is completely out of kilter. I again woke up early and went down for breakfast about 4:30 am (7:30 pm the prior day CA time!). No candy bars today, but I started breakfast at 5:30, first one at the bar, and continued eating intermittently until about 9:30, while also reading the news, my emails and working on the blog.

The ski resort Alta responded to my email and suggested another phone interview today, but did not specify a time, so I hung around waiting for their call. I spoke with the head of the ski school (who was in her Vermont summer home) about noon for about 45 minutes. I thought that it went well, and I explained that I had another offer pending. She said that the staff would be getting together on Tuesday to review candidates and someone would get back to me. I was optimistic.

After the call I pushed myself out of the hotel and got on a tram for the first time in The Hague. The #1 came quickly and so I boarded the #1 using my 3-day pass and headed for the Yugoslav International War Crimes Tribunal. The tram route went through some very pleasant neighborhoods and traveled along a big park for a while. In some places the tram ran along a grassy median. I was surprised that grass could grow in such a location. I gave up my seat to a pregnant woman (recalling the controversy I read about in NYC when it was reported that such was not occurring on the NYC subways.) who was from Surinam. I recalled that was a former Dutch colony but had no idea that many residents of the colony had immigrated to Holland. She told me that she was second generation and that there were many such immigrants in Holland, but that they were not doing so well. With this conversation I almost missed my stop.

I got out and walked past the Tribunal building entrance. It was heavily fenced so before turning around I walked around the complex of government and international organization buildings. Very innovative architecture. No glass and steel towers, but rather lots of oddly and angularly shaped buildings. I went into the Europol, but was only permitted to walk around the ground floor which had displays of the national member organizations.

I walked over to the tribunal building. I was surprised that it had a large, entire building dedicated to its activities, but was told that there were no proceedings that afternoon and that I could not go in.

I walked back to the #1 tram and rode it to the beach at the end of the line. The scene reminded me of Coney Island.  A large boardwalk with lots of rides, there was a very big Ferris wheel at the end of a pier, tourist shops and fast and junk food places. Like Coney Island it also had high (but not as high) rise apartment buildings, but it also had several large hotels.

I walked out on the beach. Nice white, fine sand, but windy. Not too many people around and there were large waves crashing on shore. I went into the Grand Hotel. It looked a bit frayed around the edges, but it had a very large lobby with big chandeliers, but no furniture in the middle so there was a large open space. I sat down at a table, ordered a drink and began to talk with two Dutch businessmen who quizzed me about Trump and whether he was as crazy as he seemed to be. They were also concerned about whether his policies would crash the world economy.

It was about 5 when I started back. I was getting very tired, but I decided to take the #9 tram back when it came first.  I assume that it was rush hour and I was fascinated watching all the people on bicycles in many cases going faster than the tram. The #9 line ran through a tunnel under Central Station and I got out on a main shopping street in the Rabbijn Maaresenplein area. Crowded, busy and lots of upscale stores. I have come to realize that when walking I needed to look out not only for vehicles, but also trams and cyclists. Walked through that and over to the smallish Chinatown. I finally got my bearings and could get back to the hotel as it was starting to seriously rain, as opposed to the general gray and mist that was present most of the day.

After my spouse returned from her conference (she had gotten into the morning session at the Yugoslav tribunal) we went out to dinner. Intended to go to an Argentinian steak house, but her knee was acting up, so we went to a restaurant, Café Schlemmer, down the street from our hotel. A very nice setting with exposed brick walls and candles. The beer was good, but the food was just OK.  She had steak and I had a fish. Went to sleep hoping I would make it through the night.